Hate is Strong and Mocks the Song
by liptonrm
Summary: Everybody has their own ways of celebrating. Set in the same AU as 'Down a Parallel Road'


Disclaimer: It's not mine. You know it, I know it, we all know it. All hail Eric Kripke and the WB/CW/Corporate Overlord of the Week.

Author's Note: A little 'Christmas in July' present. Title taken from, 'I heard the bells on Christmas Day' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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**December, 1994**

They pulled up to Bobby's house in the middle of the night. Sam had been dozing for the past couple hundred miles, his dreams a weird collage of passing headlights, whistling wind, and Dad's fingers tapping on the steering wheel in time to the music on the radio.

He jerked fully awake when the car turned into the driveway. The Creedence playing on the radio didn't match the music in his dreams but that wasn't surprising, his mind always played Johnny Cash on trips like this. Dad turned off the car and Sam could hear Bobby's dogs barking, their howls muffled by glass and steel. Dad cracked his shoulders and as one he and Dean opened their doors, bitterly cold air gusting in around them. Sam sighed and did the same. It was frigid as they walked up to the dark porch. Sam shivered in his too big overcoat, certain that his blood was already one frozen mass.

Everything that happened after Bobby opened the door was kind of a blur. Sam got a flash of a dim, book-cluttered room and then he was upstairs, burrowed under mounds of blankets in a reasonably soft bed. Before he knew it his breaths were coming in time with Dean's slow, steady respiration and then he was asleep again.

The next morning he woke up alone in the same draughty, old room that he and Dean always shared when they came by Bobby's. He didn't want to get up, it was cold in the room and warm under the covers. But his stomach felt like it was eating him alive, so he threw on as many clothing layers as he could wear and still function, and stumbled out of the room.

There wasn't anyone downstairs either, besides an old dog curled up in a sunny spot on the dingy rug. There were, however, cereal and milk waiting for him on the table. He ate three bowls of Froot Loops before deciding that he really should start looking for everyone else. If they were all stuck in some extra-dimensional vortex Dean would never let him hear the end of it.

It was clear and mind-numbingly cold outside. He immediately hunkered down in his overcoat, his icy breath puffing around his head. Everything seemed sharper outside, almost crystalline, he could hear Dad and Bobby banging around in the garage and Dean grunting as he chopped wood around the corner. It was kind of surreal and cool all at the same time.

He trudged down the steps and nearly ran into Rachel as she came around the corner. She had a string of rabbits in her right hand. Obviously she'd been out walking Bobby's trap lines. Bobby's oldest dog, Reagan, trotted at her heels.

"Hey ya, Sam," she said with a grin, neatly stepping back as he started tripping over his own feet.

"Hey," he grumbled. It wasn't that he didn't like Rachel, it's just that, well, he felt like grumbling.

Her grin only widened in response. "Happy Christmas Eve Day," she said as she stepped around him and headed towards the shed where they took care of whatever the traps picked up.

He stared at her retreating back and blinked. He'd known Christmas was coming but he didn't think anyone would bring it up. He didn't think that hunters did Christmas. There never seemed to be much point.

After a second he turned around and trudged over to where Dean was leaning on the axe handle, split logs scattered around him.

"Hey, slacker, how'd it feel laying in bed, eating bon bons?" Dean panted with a smirk.

Sam punched him in the arm. "Jerk. You didn't wake me up for breakfast."

Dean shrugged and punched him back. Sam carefully didn't show how much it hurt because Winchesters didn't cry. "Bitch. I didn't think I'd have to. You snooze you loose."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He glanced over his shoulder at the shed. "So," he stammered. "Did you know it was Christmas Eve?"

Dean glanced at him, his forehead furrowed with confusion. "Yeah, so? I thought we were already clear on the whole Santa thing."

"No," Sam squawked. "It's just, Rachel said something."

A funny look shot over Dean's face before he shrugged again. "Man, chicks are always weird about stuff like that," He picked up a log and shoved it at Sam. "Here, help me carry these into the house. Wouldn't want you to wake up to a bunch of frozen dog-sicles tomorrow morning."

"That's gross," Sam whined while he knelt down to pick up some more logs.

The day passed pretty quietly. After lunch Sam hunkered down with one of Bobby's thick books, this one on West African folklore, of all things, and stayed on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. Dinner was a stew that Sam didn't really taste, still too caught up in the stories he'd been reading to comprehend what was actually going on around him. He went back to his reading right after and only went up to bed when Dean caught him asleep on top of the book. Bobby might have had some choice words to say about getting drool on his books but Sam was too groggy to really understand him.

He shot awake in the dark, his bladder screaming at him. He stumbled past the bed that emanated Dean's snores and down the hallway to the bathroom, only tripping over one shoe in the hallway. It was on his way back that he noticed the light flickering under Rachel's door. He stood there, frozen, for a long moment. You never knew what might be hiding behind closed doors in the middle of the night.

He shook himself and slowly creeped towards the door, ears and eyes on overdrive. He heard her before he saw her, the quiet mutter of her voice. The rhythm in her voice told him that she was reading something, even though her words were too quiet for him to recognize. Her door wasn't completely closed and through the crack he could see a candle dancing on the table next to her bed.

The floor underneath him creaked and his steps cut off at the same time as her voice. Curiosity drove him through the shock and before he knew it he was pushing her door open.

Rachel was sitting on the bed, one hand under her pillow and the other on the book in her lap. The room was dim with only a small kerosene lamp and a candle for light. She sighed when she saw who it was and her right hand came out and waved him in.

"I thought everyone was asleep," she said as he crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I had to use the bathroom." He looked at the book in her lap and back up at her face. "What are you reading."

"We used to do this thing-" Rachel stopped to clear her throat and Sam realized she was embarrassed.

"You and Bobby?" He asked to cover the awkwardness.

"No, me and my family." She glanced down at the book and swallowed. Sam looked away. He really hoped she wouldn't cry, or yell.

She continued talking, eyes still glued to the book. "Every Christmas Eve we would all sit together and read the Christmas story in the Bible. My Dad thought it was important." She cleared her throat again. "I've done it every year since, except for one."

Sam blinked sudden tears out of his own eyes. He usually forgot that Bobby wasn't really her dad. It seemed like she'd always been there and it was easier to only see the similarities between her and Bobby rather than remember everything else.

He looked back over at her and she was still staring down at the book, her fingers flipping the top corners of the pages back and forth. It didn't look like she was crying, not that Sam would've blamed her.

"Can I read with you?" Sam asked quietly. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and bright. She smiled, it was one of the happiest and saddest things he'd ever seen.

"That would be great." Rachel handed it to him. "Merry Christmas, Sam."

"Merry Christmas," he whispered in reply.


End file.
